Why are experts turning to cryo-preservation to combat plant extinction threats? Find out in this episode of The Future Of.
Why are experts turning to cryo-preservation to combat plant extinction threats? In this episode, host David Karsten is joined by Professor Ricardo Mancera and Dr Bryn Funnekotter to discuss the role of cryo-preservation for long-term conservation of plant species, asked why this is necessary for industry, and discussed emerging cryo biotechnology that could be a viable alternative to conventional seed storage.
What sort of challenge does plant extinction pose to Australia's unique biodiversity? [01:01]
The role that cryo-preservation plays in preservation of natural environments [ 08:54]
How mining industry and scientists work together to restore degraded ecosystems [17:23]
The wider implications of saving species via cryo-storage [30:11]
Cryo-Seed Banking at Kings Park, WA
The successful cryo-freezing of Avocado Trees/Seeds in QLD (ABC)
Scientists reviving 32000 year old previously extinct seeds from Siberia (National Geographic)
Professor Ricardo Mancera
Prof. Ricardo Mancera is a distinguished expert in Biophysical Chemistry and Computational Biophysics from Curtin University's School of Biomedical Sciences. His research delves into the complexities of protein behaviour, enzyme mechanisms, and hydration's role in drug design, advancing medical science and therapeutics.
Dr Bryn Funnekotter
Dr. Bryn Funnekotter leads biotechnological conservation efforts with a profound passion for preserving Australian flora. Based dually at Curtin University and Kings Park, his research focus is to enhance and solidify the use of cryopreservation and plant tissue culture as viable conservation instruments for Australia's unique plant species.
LinkedIn
Botanic Gardens of WA Staff Page
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Hosts: David Karsten
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00:00:00:00 - 00:00:36:04
David Karsten
This is the future of where experts share their vision of the future and how their work is helping shape it for the better. I'm David Karsten. In a world witnessing an unprecedented loss of living species with 40% of plants facing extinction, threats, having a conversation around preserving biodiversity has become critical. In this episode, I chatted with Professor Ricardo Mancera from the Curtin Medical School and Dr. Bryn Fennekotter from Kings Park Science, who is also an adjunct research scientist at Curtin University.
00:00:36:06 - 00:01:04:04
David Karsten
We delved into the role of using cryopreservation for long term conservation of plant species. Asked why this is necessary for conservation agencies and industry and discussed emerging cryo biotechnology that could be a viable alternative to conventional seed storage. For more insights on this topic, see the links in our shownotes. Bryn, Australia's biodiversity is truly unique and under threat from factors like climate change and deforestation.
00:01:04:06 - 00:01:33:16
David Karsten
How much of a challenge does plant extinction pose to our country's very special ecosystems?
Bryn
Yes, Australia's biodiversity certainly is unique. It's about 70% of the plants are endemic and not found anywhere else in the world. So we do a lot of work just understanding our unique species and trying to save them. Obviously extinction is a threat around the world, but Australia is certainly experiencing a lot of threats to our populations.
00:01:33:18 - 00:01:58:14
Bryn
Climate change and big fires we've been having recently certainly put a lot of populations under stress and more at risk of extinction. So trying to go and collect samples and conserve those samples and maintain the existing populations is a huge amount of effort we're trying to put in to save our unique biodiversity here.
David Karsten
And that biodiversity is massive in scale.
00:01:58:14 - 00:02:20:16
David Karsten
I mean, even our taxonomy isn't complete as yet, is it?
Bryn
Yeah, we still find new species. People go out for a trip on a helicopter up into the Kimberleys and come back with 1050 new species that have never been found before. So certainly makes things very challenging when someone says, Oh, actually there's a whole new host of species that we have no idea if they are threatened, how well the populations are doing.
00:02:20:16 - 00:02:52:18
Bryn
This is the first time we've seen it and recorded it. So yeah, working with those sort of new species where nothing is known at all is certainly a challenge.
David Karsten
So we really need an army of green and Ricardo's on the ground doing this work. Are there enough of you? I think it's always a struggle to get enough people, but there's suddenly a lot of people interested, and citizen scientists and people working in the department, all interested in trying to conserve and maintain our unique flora.
00:02:52:20 - 00:03:19:09
David Karsten
Well, Ricardo, with regards to the conservation of these species, what role does cryo biotechnology actually play in that conservation? Can you explain that to us? Sure. Cryo biotechnology is the last resource when it comes to I'm focusing now in plants, plants that don't produce enough seeds or even if they produce seeds, they're very difficult to store for the long term.
00:03:19:11 - 00:03:56:24
Ricardo
So it's our last line of defence. And unfortunately, there are a lot of species around the world as well as in Australia that fall in that category. So it provides us with a way of ensuring that what we refer to as germplasm. So seeds or all the plant material can be preserved forever in principle. So it's essential that it's a technique that we continue to develop to make sure that in 50 or 100 years time when somebody decides to thaw these material, that those plants can regrow.
00:03:57:01 - 00:04:23:17
David Karsten
Well, can you tell us about what the pillars, the main ingredients of the process are and what is it that you talk about when you talk about plant material?
Ricardo
Sure. So we can use, for example, seeds. Sometimes we have to extract the embryos for winning the seeds. We can also sometimes cut what are called shoot tapes from plants, or we can sometimes use what is called callus, which is like damaged tissue that is being regenerated from plants.
00:04:23:19 - 00:04:44:08
Ricardo
So there's a range of material that can be used to regrow an entire plant. We can't quite do the same, for example, with us. You know, if I cut a finger off, you're not going to get another one of you later, Right. So we will have to then rely in the case of animals or humans, of course, X or sperm or embryos per se.
00:04:44:10 - 00:05:14:05
Ricardo
So that's what we refer to as plant material. So it's good that in the case of plants, there's a diversity of material that we can use for this purpose.
David Karsten
And what medium does the process happen in?
Ricardo
So initially, a lot of this material can be taken directly from a greenhouse. More commonly happens from tissue culture. So you have a an agar in a in a plate that you're growing small platelets, and then you can extract from there the material that you want.
00:05:14:10 - 00:05:41:23
Ricardo
You cut it out and then you make it on there. Go this process of cryopreservation.
David Karsten
Oh here we go. What's all that about?
All that is, is a very stressful process for the plant material involved, because we need to achieve a number of things before we actually put it in the master situation, which is liquid nitrogen. So we need to make sure that this plant material has been desiccated as much as possible.
00:05:42:01 - 00:06:14:03
David Karsten
Desiccated?
Ricardo
Yep. So there's less water present within it. And I'll come back to why water is the enemy here. And we also need to make sure that the plants and gradually get used to the presence of certain compounds that we call cryoprotective agents. So when you put something in liquid nitrogen, the idea is to cool it down really fast to liquid nitrogen temperatures, which is -196 degrees.
00:06:14:04 - 00:06:44:11
Ricardo
That is very, very, very cool. And the idea of doing that is that at such cold temperatures, nothing happens. You arrest physics, you arrest chemistry, and as a consequence, you arrest biology. So everything is in a suspended animation state. Just like in sci fi movies. That's the goal, right?
David Karsten
Han Solo in the..
Ricardo
Indeed, In principle, indeed. The trouble is that when you cool things down to such low temperatures, you're very likely to form a lot of ice.
00:06:44:13 - 00:07:16:09
Ricardo
And biology contains a lot of water. So ice is really bad because it kills cells, it kills tissues. And it is really the enemy of cryopreservation. So hence we try to remove as much water beforehand. This process of desiccation that I was referring to. And we use this crop protective agents that also helped to desecrate or dehydrate all these materials, but also are very good at preventing the formation of these ice.
00:07:16:11 - 00:07:43:14
RIcardo
So we try to induce a process called vitrification, which is really the the golden aim in in in crowd biotechnology. So in the inside of all our cells and also within cells, instead of there being any ice, we form this amorphous solid, which is called the vitrified state and there is no ice and there is nothing that goes on in terms of chemistry or biochemistry.
00:07:43:19 - 00:08:07:08
Ricardo
And so these tissues can then be preserved indefinitely in this liquid nitrogen.
David Karsten
What is the key to achieving that vitreous state?
Ricardo
That's right.
David Karsten
And is it an exact temperature point or are there other elements in making that happen? So we take it to this liquid nitrogen temperature. And the problem is that by the time we get there, often we have formed ice already.
00:08:07:08 - 00:08:34:19
Ricardo
So we have produced a vitrified state. But there's also a lot of ice that has killed or has killed cells or often otherwise gets formed a year, ten years later, when you thaw the material and you bring in the back to, say, normal ambient temperatures, often that's when ice it gets warm because you're bringing it up from very, very low temperatures and as you approach your own temperature, you might have a better formation of ice.
00:08:34:20 - 00:09:28:03
Ricardo
So there's these two places where ice formation can occur and it's very hard as a consequence for our technology to be able to account for both the beginning of the process and towards the end of the process. In your work, Ricardo, is cryo biotechnology playing an increasing role in the preservation of species? Oh, definitely, definitely. And it's not only species that are endangered because of deforestation or disease or global warming or what have you, but it's also playing an increasing role in animal conservation and indeed in reproductive medicine, you know, in vitro fertilization, you know, so is the same technology and as the world warms up and there is more destruction of natural environments, we
00:09:28:03 - 00:10:05:09
Ricardo
see an increasing need to resort to this type of technology to conserve the flora of Australia and indeed the floor of the world. So it is there's an increasing need for this type of technology to succeed.
David Karsten
Bryn, this very complex technique of of preservation, as Ricardo is saying, is playing an increasing role. Is it replacing traditional seed storage and what are the flaws with traditional seed storage, particularly in the sphere of our native flora?
00:10:05:11 - 00:10:37:19
Bryn
So this technique is not supposed to replace a traditional seed bank is a very useful tool for conservation. And as the majority of species will actually produce sufficient appropriate seed that can go into the sea bank and be maintained in there for decades as a minimum. But it is certainly complements the seed bank for the species where we’re not finding sufficient seed or we need to go through an alternative process to conserve that species.
00:10:37:21 - 00:11:03:10
Bryn
And there is certainly cases of species that will just never produce seed. They don't they clonal, they will basically never produce seed that is viable for an offshore sea bank, or they come from the tropical areas in the rainforest, areas where you have what are called recalcitrant seed, which are not amenable to the desiccation phase. That's just not part of their life cycle, to desecrate out the seed and then germinate them.
00:11:03:10 - 00:11:30:07
Bryn
When there's sufficient water in a rainforest, there's always water. So the seeds just get going as soon as they can. And so those species are certainly becoming more of an issue lately with deforestation of our rainforests. There's a huge number of species in there that are not producing orthodox seed that can go into a seed bank. So we need alternative methods of conservation, and that's when cryopreservation comes into play.
00:11:30:08 - 00:12:14:02
Bryn
It's a very useful method. If we can get those seed material that plant germplasm into cryo storage, it is very safe in cryo storage for the next thousand years until we can basically go and reforest and replant them and regrow those rainforests and hopefully maintain that diverse city of the that the plant species in there.
David Karsten
Well, Ricardo, just on that complexity of biotechnology and the process of preserving through that technique, is it a one size fits all solution across the different floral species, or do you have to start tailoring it for individuals?
00:12:14:04 - 00:12:47:03
Bryn
Unfortunately, it's not a one size fits all, and I guess that reflects the diversity of plants and their metabolism, the properties of their cell membranes and the way they have adapted throughout evolution to their environment. So cryo biotechnology over the decades has suffered precisely from this problem that it's being developed and indeed successfully, but nonetheless developed on a trial and error basis.
00:12:47:05 - 00:13:14:13
Bryn
And much of the work that we are doing in collaboration with Kings Park Science and indeed much of the work that is done around the world is trying to understand what are the basic principles that we can then go and try and tweak for each plant species, or at least for, say, a genome of this species, to try and come up with targeted trial biotechnology approaches that work ideally for those species.
00:13:14:13 - 00:13:41:20
Bryn
And there are species that do for the first time try to preserve them and they work beautifully. And there are all the species that you can spend years. And we've we've had some of those for sure in our experience that are just very, very difficult to preserve. And sometimes it's not clear why. Why is it that this one is relatively easy and this one is just so hard and sometimes within the same species.
00:13:41:22 - 00:14:13:15
Bryn
Some, Sometimes some, some of them are easy, somewhat. That some of them are not. And so some it's it's and this is why we're trying to develop the basic science on the standard. Well, one of the effects is the effects that have to do with, for example, there are genetic properties, things that have to do with the composition of their cell membranes, for example, um, to try and find ways that we can then fine tune as much as possible the cryopreservation protocols that we're developing for that species to guaranteed success.
00:14:13:17 - 00:14:34:18
David Karsten
It does sound like between the pair of you, you've got several lifetimes of work ahead of you. There is so many species and, and, and, and obviously so many characteristics that are individual to some of these species. It's it's a mountain of work, but so worthwhile, so worthy. You mentioned Kings Park. Ricardo, I want to throw to Bryn here.
00:14:34:20 - 00:15:05:08
David Karsten
You share your time between Curtin University and Kings Park, what’s your role over at Kings Park?
Bryn
So I am the research scientist that is curating the tissue culture and cryopreservation collections at Kings Park, focusing on threatened species in Western Australia. So we have just over 400 threatened species in Western Australia that are of conservation concern. Something needs to be done to ensure that they don't become extinct.
00:15:05:10 - 00:15:40:00
Bryn
So we don't certainly don't want to lose any more plant species. And so tissue culture has a unique role in that conservation aspect, particularly for a few species where there's very small populations of plants remaining, say four or five plants left in the wild, we can go with tissue culture through that clonal process or tissue culture and maintain all the genetic diversity of that species and then put them into cryo storage to be raised for translocation programs or future work research in the future.
00:15:40:02 - 00:16:13:00
Bryn
So it complements that side of things, will hopefully get seed as well that we can put in the seed bank. We might be able to send up some living collections in the Botanic Garden as an additional conservation collection, but basically we would be trying to use all these different tools that we can to ensure nothing happens and we have saved this species as best we can, um, and have a supply of material, hopefully for future translocations to bolster up that population and ensure it is a healthy population into the future.
00:16:13:02 - 00:16:46:22
David Karsten
Well, look, Bren, obviously the scientific community is spearheading the preservation work and that is so important. But you alluded before to the notion of of small plant communities that might be unique to one location, even in, say, the vast expanse of outback Western Australia, for instance. And you can't help but immediately think of projects in those spaces that that take up a lot of acreage, a lot of hectarage, if that is such a word.
00:16:46:24 - 00:17:19:02
David Karsten
And what I'd like to know from you is whether or not resources companies that do take up a lot of space and and do require a lot of of the land in their role in revegetate and restoring the landscape after their operations are over. Are they partnering with the scientific community in this this this work that you are both involved in?
00:17:19:04 - 00:17:55:03
Bryn
Yes, we certainly collaborate with industry and I try and supply the science behind how best to restore potentially degraded ecosystems back into their their native back to their native and how can I put it, diversity rates. So working with the industry and doing the basic research behind how best to restore that ecosystem is vital. See, if we don't do that research, we're not going to get back the same representation that was there before.
00:17:55:05 - 00:18:22:06
Bryn
And I think it's essential to ensure that the same species and the diversity that was there before is returned. Otherwise, we're going to basically be losing out. We're going to miss out on essential plants in the ecosystem that might be food sources for the one particular species that are we need the orchids are a case in point where they have one particular pollinator that's associated with that orchid.
00:18:22:08 - 00:18:56:13
Bryn
If you lose that symbiotic relationship, you can never return them back. They will never go into the next generation and maintain a self-sustaining population. So ensuring the whole ecosystem is healthy at the end of that is vital to ensure that that area stays as a healthy ecosystem. Ricardo, more pointedly, are you as as a scientist, as part of the scientific community, seeing active collaboration with the resources sector on cryo biotechnology specifically?
00:18:56:15 - 00:19:25:13
Ricardo
Yes, And indeed, we have had in the past, for example, I grant which a couple of mining companies, Alcoa of Australia and BHP Billiton, that it was aimed precisely at helping them develop through our cryo biotechnology research. The ability to enhance their storage of some of the species that were most problematic for them, and that we actually even visited some of their sites down south.
00:19:25:13 - 00:19:43:23
Ricardo
And it's it's actually very interesting and indeed amazing to see how not only they have the interest, but actually they also have the legal obligation (WA) legislation to try to take back those environments that they have mind to as close as possible to what they used to look like before. And we've visited some of these sites.
00:19:43:23 - 00:20:13:18
Ricardo
And it's amazing that it's not just they're not planting pine trees that might be the case decades ago, but they're actually trying, as being alluded to before, they have to restore the original diversity of of of plants at least. But also there's the does the other species that are involved. And it's a it's an excellent example of them putting their money where their mouth is and saying, yes, we we value this research that you're doing and we're going to collaborate with you.
00:20:13:18 - 00:20:34:15
Ricardo
And it worked really well for us. So and there's a long history, particularly with with Kings Park Science, of collaborating with those two companies, but as well as all the other all the companies in the mining sector in W.A. Well, that's the big picture, Ricardo and Bryn, but surely I'd like to find out a little bit more about your individual research journeys.
00:20:34:15 - 00:21:02:22
David Karsten
But before we do, we've got to take a short break and we'll be back right after these messages.
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David Karsten
Ricardo, describe the research work you're you're doing here at Curtin and what steered you towards cryopreservation and biophysical chemistry as an area of interest?
Ricardo
So the work that I do at Curtin that I have been doing for pretty much since I did my Ph.D., is what we call molecular modeling and simulation.
00:21:33:03 - 00:22:01:03
Ricardo
So it's an area where we use typically high performance computing facilities like here, the Policy Center, you know, supercomputing facilities. And what we do is we use this computers to model and simulate how molecules behave, how they interact with one another, uh, in systems as complex as in the cell membranes, for example, or proteins, you know, our cells.
00:22:01:05 - 00:22:25:06
Ricardo
And while it requires a number of approximations, the ability of this method is that he tells you what every atom in your system is doing at any moment in time. So they're very powerful in terms of extracting properties that you basically cannot obtain in any experimental way. So you have to rely on an approach like that to obtain that level of detail.
00:22:25:08 - 00:22:59:19
Ricardo
And it was something that interested me a lot because I realized that is the only way one could have to understand the molecular mechanisms that are at play in something as complex as biology. And you're asking me how I ended up doing some of the work that I do related to cryopreservation. And it's it's an interesting story because I was coming from even before I came to Australia, I was coming from trying to understand very basic forces, intermolecular forces in and in solution in water.
00:22:59:21 - 00:23:33:06
Unknown
And I came across a particular molecule called Dimethyl Sulfoxide, all amongst friends called DMSO. And so one of the properties of this solvent is that it's used as a cryo protective agent in cryopreservation. And that caught my eye. And I'm like, Well, what is that? And without extending the story too much, it was always at the back of my mind to study the molecular mechanism that these molecules have that confers some described protective abilities.
00:23:33:06 - 00:24:01:11
Ricardo
And so when I came to Australia 18 years plus ago, I was interested in, you know, I was coming to develop my own research group and I was interested in pursuing this particular avenue of of research. And as I'm doing my my searches of the literature, I came across this particular paper that caught my eye. It wasn't about this DMSO molecule, but it was about all the protective agents.
00:24:01:17 - 00:24:26:07
Ricardo
And I realized that the authors were from Curtin and from Kings Park Science. I was like, Wow, Well, that's amazing. So I got in touch with some of these individuals. Some occurred in some of the Kings Park, and it wasn't long before I realized, well, here we have what I have, I should say, world experts in cryopreservation of in this case of plants, um, that I can collaborate with.
00:24:26:09 - 00:24:58:04
Ricardo
And so, you know, the rest is history, as they say, because it opened up so many opportunities to have the real life experimentation and application, real life application because, you know, these guy's at Kings Park conserving the flora of the precious flora of this of this state for real. They are doing it for real and being able to visit their facilities and being shown, for example, species that are already extinct in the wild, but that they keep them there.
00:24:58:06 - 00:25:19:05
Ricardo
So I was I was amazed by that. And and to realize that there was an opportunity to develop a collaboration not only that would satisfy my interest in doing this molecular simulation to understand mechanisms of action, but actually to try to working with them to develop the science in general of preservation further, which is something that has happened quite successfully.
00:25:19:05 - 00:26:11:24
Ricardo
And Bryn was indeed one of, you were the first, the first the very first student that we had on on this project and seen take off using other scientific approaches to advance the science of krill biotechnology in collaboration with with Kings Park has been an amazing journey.
David Karsten
Ricardo, without getting into the weeds too much in terms of the complexities of the work that you do, just a question on the Palsy supercomputer and how that's required to to set up and examine the simulations is that obviously a very important avenue through which to, I guess, predict how, uh, molecular behavior changes at -196 degrees.
00:26:12:01 - 00:26:39:14
Ricardo
We don't normally study such low temperatures because things move so, so slowly at those temperatures. Right. But what we do is we try to mimic, for example, the dehydration conditions that we talk about that we need to achieve during doing cryopreservation. We try to mimic, for example, changing the composition of the cell membranes that all plant cells have.
00:26:39:20 - 00:27:07:16
Ricardo
We try to mimic changing the the composition of the protective agents and their mixtures that are being used to try and get an understanding of the basic mechanisms at play. And so that's how we get a lot of insight as to what is the mechanism by which these agents can protect cell membranes from the damages of of preservation.
00:27:07:18 - 00:27:36:19
David Karsten
Bryn, Ricardo alluded to your crossing paths when you were a student initially, and now you are one of the, and I quote one of the people at Kings Park preserving for reel, which I love. Ricardo, can you tell us about your path from those early the early work that you were doing with with Ricardo to I mean, you're still working together essentially, you know.
00:27:36:24 - 00:28:06:16
Bryn
Yes. So this was back in 2009. They advertised an honors project to start basically understanding what's happening to cell membranes and how plant cell membranes can be adapted to try and promote as a more stable membrane during the cryopreservation process. And we can do stuff like expose plants to different temperature stresses or light stresses or something else like that that actually physically changes the cell membranes and plants.
00:28:06:18 - 00:28:30:12
Bryn
And some of these, after they've acclimated to these conditions, these plants will actually do better through cryopreservation. So that's where I started my honors degree, looking at the composition of membranes and that fed into the molecular simulation work that continues. And then I moved into looking at additional stresses that the plants are experiencing during the different stages of cryopreservation.
00:28:30:12 - 00:29:02:02
Bryn
So we looked into the role of antioxidants to protect from oxidative stress. Looking at different compounds, we can add and change in the cryopreservation procedure to try and improve regeneration rates afterwards. And now I'm the one curating some of that collection. And I can tell you we have 37 threatened species in long term cryo storage that are available where you can rewarm them when they require it and bring them back and plant them back out into the wild if something ever happens to that population.
00:29:02:04 - 00:29:39:18
David Karsten
Well, that sounds like the, I guess, the zenith of your work right there, isn't it? That's the that's the point. Right? Are there any other moments along the ensuing decade or more since you met Ricardo, that that really sort of stand out as real highlights of your research journey so far?
Bryn
I think the very first time you develop a protocol and it works for a species is amazing to say, I have got a protocol, I've put the species through, they've been frozen and you know, this is one of the most stressful things you can do to a plant, probably without sort of weirdly killing it.
00:29:39:18 - 00:29:56:16
Bryn
It's sort of dead in cryo storage. Nothing's happening. And we can rewarm it and regrow it and say, look, there it is, is growing again. In a thousand years, someone might come along and take one of these samples I cryopreserved and do the same process and bring it out and put it back in the wild if it's needed at that point in time.
00:29:56:16 - 00:30:21:04
Bryn
So to say, look, it's there, it's saved its cryo preserved like we have that plants, you know we we've there's no risk of extinction for that plant there because it's in cryo storage. We can bring it back any time we want at this point. And it's amazing that way.
David Karsten
I can only imagine, considering that it it was you that stood between survival and extinction.
00:30:21:06 - 00:30:47:02
David Karsten
That particular species that's that must be something really satisfying.
Bryn
Yeah. Yeah. No, it's great. It's great to. Yeah. Have that sort of potential impact for that that plant species where, you know, you can say we have conserved this species and much the same. Hopefully they will, the population will never need that cryostored sample and it will do well in the wild and be safe there.
00:30:47:04 - 00:31:14:23
Bryn
But it's there just in case. And that's it's great to sort of in the background to have that and say, look, I think we're okay.
David Karsten
Well, Ricardo, for those of you, really, the work will always continue. It will always. There was so much to do. But in your time at the coalface, have there been some really notable moments where you've thought to yourself, you know, this this hard work and this perseverance is really worthwhile?
00:31:15:00 - 00:31:41:01
Ricardo
There's definitely the more theoretical side of of the answer to your question, which relates to the work that we do and it has been very gratifying to be able to start to tease out how different cryo protective molecules operate in relation to, for example, cell membranes. And they all have the unique quirks about it. So being able to explain that behavior is definitely very, very gratifying for me.
00:31:41:03 - 00:32:00:23
Ricardo
But to be honest, the most gratifying part of it all is to see that the science that is being developed in the lab that goes hand in hand with what we do, of course, using using computers is actually being applied for real. And I'll use that phrase again for real over there at Kings Park, and they are succeeding.
00:32:01:00 - 00:32:38:13
Ricardo
And this work has been done by Bryn as well as a number of students that have come from from Curtin and they are succeeding in in advancing designs and preserving more and more species. And it's when you realize just the way rainforest is that it's that it's actually making a difference to the world, right? So it's not just blue skies research that I, you know, I do all the time anyway, but it's to actually sit at a play having real demonstrable, tangible outcomes that will remain for the future.
00:32:38:15 - 00:32:59:03
Ricardo
And it's very, very gratifying, by the way. Gratifying to me that's thus the best part of it, to see these for real in in in a world that is under threat from so many sides, to see that one can actually make, even if it's small, can still make a difference for posterity, to me, that's the most gratifying part of it.
00:32:59:05 - 00:33:30:16
David Karsten
Final question that I'm throwing to both of you, and you two can decide how to tap dance around this, but your work already demonstrates the collaboration between different disciplines to come up with the results. What are other potential scientific domains that you see collaborating in this kind of work into the future?
Ricardo
Okay, see, Bryn struggling a bit
00:33:30:16 - 00:33:59:07
Ricardo
So let me let me step in to start with. If anything, our collaboration with Kings Park has precisely been based on keep adding more approaches and potentially disciplines to what we do. So there's the two of us here, but we also have had a lot of collaborators and some of them are physicists, for example, and some of them are chemists and although I'm a chemist myself.
00:33:59:09 - 00:34:23:23
Ricardo
And so being able to say, Well, how what if we look at metabolic studies? How about if we look at biochemical studies, How about if we start to look at more molecular genetics approaches, how genes are being expressed, which is something that we have been doing more recently. So this how about if we try new approaches that have not been used either in plant cryopreservation or certainly not with any plant species?
00:34:24:00 - 00:34:47:22
Ricardo
So and being able to find the right partners, whether it's at Curtin or whether it's at UWA or whether it's in other parts of Australia or indeed around the world, is certainly that we have never shied away from doing. And it's a field that can be enriched precisely because it's a complex one and it requires input from a lot of disciplines.
00:34:47:22 - 00:35:19:23
Ricardo
So clearly that's where we're heading into the future to continue to expand the different approaches and the different disciplines that come into play. And so it's it's great that Bryn’s predecessor Dr. Eric Bonn and now Bryn himself because of their backgrounds, that they have always been very keen to expand their repertoire of techniques. And so that's what I think guarantees the future of, of, of this field and for sure, the future of this part of of the work that Kings Park conducts.
00:35:20:00 - 00:35:46:03
Bryn
I would add that expanding our expertise and trying to transfer those skills to other botanic gardens around Australia, other institutes that are interested in cryopreservation is also very valuable. So if we can get more data on someone else working on a different species from the other side of Australia and saying, Hey, look, we had a bit of a breakthrough here working with this protocol or this change or this thing that we've done.
00:35:46:05 - 00:36:09:04
Bryn
It all helps bring it together into our understanding of how these protocols can be improved. So certainly working with, you know, a nice wide range of scientists across the world and trying to bring together all our data and our understanding is going to be vital for how we progress into the future and and, you know, continue to conserve more and more species.
00:36:09:04 - 00:36:46:17
Bryn
And we sort of need to ramp up our processes. Like the more people working on it, the more we can get in there, the more we can understand. So certainly useful to collaborate extensively as we can.
David Karsten
It certainly does seem that collaboration is the key to such a large set of tasks and it is such an important work and it's been an absolute pleasure to to hear how the both of you are really at the bleeding edge of of of preserving our species here in Western Australia, but also contributing to the preservation techniques of Flora Australia wide and even globally.
00:36:46:17 - 00:37:12:19
David Karsten
If, if it truly is part of an international conversation. Ricardo Brin, thank you very much for spending some time with us today. Well, thank you very much. It was very enjoyable. Thank you. Thank you very much. And you've been listening to the Future of Podcast powered by Curtin University. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share it. And if you want to hear more from experts, stay up to date by subscribing to us on your favourite podcast app.
00:37:12:21 - 00:37:14:16
David Karsten
Bye for now.